New To Blu: Lord of Tears

Chris Jordan reviews the cult horror film, Lord of Tears.

"Tis but a feather. A fleainfested, disease ridden grotesque feather."

Every now and then you discover a new horror film that
reminds you why you love the genre, and that restores your faith in it amid a
sea of forgettable and formulaic flicks. A film that puts aside
too-often-repeated genre conventions and cheap scares, and genuinely gets under
your skin with originality and powerful filmmaking. The 2013 Scottish indie Lord
of Tears is one of those all too rare films. And after originally being
available only as a very rare, out-of-print limited edition, Lord of Tears
is coming back as a special edition Blu-ray/DVD/soundtrack box set this summer,
and there are some cool rewards offered for anyone who pre-orders.

Part ghost story, part love story, part rumination on grief,
and part Lovecraftian tale of ancient evil, this film is absolutely
spellbinding. On the one hand, it is the story of a man trying to come to terms
with a traumatic past, and find closure so he can discover love in the present.
On the other hand, it is the story of a foreboding, isolated mansion in the
Scottish Highlands, filled with dark secrets and tied to local legends of a
demon known as the Owl Man. What makes Lord of Tears so special is that
it handles both of these sides so well, with each complimenting and amplifying
the other. It is a film of great emotional power – quite poetic, in fact –
which also happens to be very, very creepy. And it is so creepy precisely
because we are so emotionally invested.

The film unfolds with a very deliberate slow-burn approach:
it is not interested in shocks so much as emotions, ideas, and atmosphere that
gradually build up to get under the viewer's skin in a highly unsettling way.
As the mysteries of screenwriter Sarah Daly's script unfold, it draws the
audience under its spell as surely as it does our haunted main character, with
the ethereal, hypnotic feel of a dream. On top of all that, the film has a very
memorable supernatural mythology surrounding the Owl Man – the title's Lord of
Tears – who is a bit like a combination of the Slender Man and one of H. P.
Lovecraft's elder beings.

In addition to its strong approach to horror storytelling,
the thing that stands out most about Lord of Tears is what an incredibly
well-shot, visually fantastic film it is. Director Lawrie Brewster and
cinematographer/art director Gavin Robertson have very talented eyes for
beautiful, haunting images; this is the sort of movie where any number of shots
could be made into art prints and hung on your wall (if you wanted to give your
house a pretty spooky atmosphere). It's so rare for indie films to look this
gorgeous, let alone indie horror films. Brewster and Robertson make fantastic
use of the richly atmospheric remote setting, filled with twisting, leafless
trees and crumbling old buildings silhouetted against a perpetually overcast
sky. And they must have carried cameras with them wherever they went to be able
to capture the perfect yet clearly spontaneous shots of nature that fill the film:
a spider weaving its web in intense close-up, birds taking off en-mass from a
tree, a deer standing in a perfectly-composed shot like an actor. This
naturally moody atmosphere helps give life to the Owl Man, who already makes a
very effective demon thanks to the excellent creature design. Simple and
stylized, yet highly effective, this creature is the stuff nightmares are made
of.

"Your face is like a baby's bottom;soft and covered in crap.Let me kiss you."

A true indie, Lord of Tears used Kickstarter for
funding, and its Blu-rays and DVDs are self-released with great love and care
by Lawrie Brewster and company. The original, now very rare, limited edition
Blu-ray and DVD sets came hand-signed and hand-gift-wrapped by the filmmakers;
a very personal thank-you for supporting their work. The film is now coming
back to Blu-ray and DVD in its first non-limited-edition form, and they are
taking just as much care to make it something special the second time around.
The special edition Blu/DVD/soundtrack box set is due out this summer, and will
include new special features and a new, freshly remastered cut of the film
itself. And continuing Brewster's philosophy of maintaining a personal
relationship with horror fans, he's offering something pretty cool to anyone
who pre-orders at the film's web site, hexmedia.tv:
all pre-order customers will be personally thanked on a video featurette on the
disc, and will get a personal thank-you on the film's Facebook page. And yes,
even though it is a UK web site that lists the price in pounds, they are making
both NTSC and PAL variations on the box set. If you can't wait til summer (and
you shouldn't; you should watch this film as soon as possible), the Hex Media
web site also sells a digital copy for just $10.

Lord of Tears is definitely essential viewing, for
horror fans and lovers of independent film alike. It deserves the sort of
attention that other genre-rejuvenating hits like The Babadook and House
of the Devil have gotten; I suspect the only reason it hasn't is because it
remains truly indie in distribution as well as production, and hasn't benefited
from a marketing push by a larger studio. Which is all the more reason why it
should be supported: this is exactly the sort of filmmaking we need more of.